The Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) has an immediate career opening for an Adjunct Research Staff Member. This opening is located at IDA’s Center for Computing Sciences in Bowie, Maryland (CCS). IDA offers a competitive salary, an excellent benefits package and a superior professional working environment. To the right individual, IDA offers the opportunity to have a major impact on key national programs while working on fascinating technical issues.

We support transparency, equity, and fairness in our compensation program and provide a reasonable estimate of the salary range based on data-driven market analysis for each position. While it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range, a reasonable estimate of the salary range for this role is $112,924 - $263,335. Individual salary within this range will be commensurate with the incumbent's experience, unique skills and qualifications, and other relevant factors.

Summary Statement:

Provides technical and analytical expertise in support of IDA's long-term mandate to help the intelligence community identify and solve difficult technical problems in areas such as cryptography and cryptanalysis, high-performance computing, speech/signals analysis, and network defense and exploitation. Attacking potentially impossible problems requires intellectual breadth, willingness to take risks, and significant autonomy; this research often also requires close attention to how the results will be used, and to the possibility of creating genuinely new scientific ideas.

Function:        

• Develops and uses acquired technical knowledge and experience to identify, articulate and advocate for promising approaches to difficult problems.
• Stay current on developments in mathematics and science with potential relevance to sponsor problems, and maintain strong connections to the academic research community.
• Pursues and achieves solutions to problems individually and in groups, through mathematics, algorithm and code development, data generation and analysis, etc.
• Works with other researchers and the sponsor to effectively prioritize effort across multiple difficult problems.  
• Documents ideas and incremental progress, sharing them within the research community so as to maximize the probability of success.  
• Maintains close communication with the sponsoring organization as necessary to ensure that evolutions in research direction remain relevant, promising, data-driven, and non-duplicative.
• Develops and sustains working relationships with the sponsor to ensure that opportunities for collaboration are surfaced.
• Individually, or in a team, prepares formal papers as appropriate, documenting methods, conclusions, and findings. May present findings of the final report to task sponsor and/or to select audiences.  
• Contributes to the overall technical heath of the organization, e.g. by leading SCAMPs, workshops, or sustained efforts; writing expository papers; serving as a liaison to academic departments; recruiting and interviewing potential researchers; arranging for external speakers; and giving out briefs on conferences attended.

Capabilities:

• Able to work effectively and independently in an unstructured environment
• Possesses relevant expertise and can bring it to bear on difficult problems
• Able to exercise sound judgment
• Able to effectively manage time across multiple research projects
• Able to collaborate well
• Able to effectively and appropriately leverage computing resources
• Able to communicate clearly and effectively both verbally and in writing
• Able to interact and maintain effective relationships with Government or industry representatives as needed
• Able to independently identify and address challenges, and assume technical leadership as needed

Minimum Job Qualifications:

Education/Experience: At minimum, requires BS+8 years of experience or MS+6 years of experience or Ph.D. in a discipline appropriate for the position

Knowledge/Skills/Abilities:

• Demonstrated ability to perform independent research
• Proven ability to publish findings and present findings orally
• Able to present ideas, concepts, and theories orally and in writing
• Demonstrated innovative thinking and problem resolution

• Able to work in an unstructured environment and/or on more than one project concurrently
• Able to interact with government or industry representatives
• Travel may be required

• U.S. Citizenship is required
• Ability to obtain and maintain a security clearance is required